• Hot Off The 'Net - International

    U.S. Rejects Indigenous Rights in Favor of Failed War on Drugs

    Strong-arms Other Countries to Follow Suit

    By Daniel Ernesto Robelo, Alternet

    Why is the United States formally objecting to Bolivia’s request to the UN to allow its ancestral practice of coca leaf chewing?

    Last week the United States formally objected to Bolivia’s request to the United Nations to allow the ancestral practice of coca leaf chewing. In doing so, it revealed the corruption, hypocrisy and futility of the global war on drugs, which it clearly values over the rights of indigenous peoples.

    Bolivia’s proposal is modest. It would strike two clauses from the 1961 U.N. Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs, which require that coca chewing “be abolished within twenty-five years” after taking effect. The existing system of cocaine prohibition would remain.

  • International

    The War On Drugs Is Lost

    By Fernando Henrique Cardoso

    SAO PAULO-The war on drugs is a lost war, and 2011 is the time to move away from a punitive approach in order to pursue a new set of policies based on public health, human rights and common sense. These are the core findings of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy that I convened, together with former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Cesar Gaviria of Colombia.

    We became involved with this issue for a compelling reason: the violence and corruption associated with drug trafficking represents a major threat to democracy in our region. This sense of urgency led us to evaluate current policies and look for viable alternatives. The evidence is overwhelming that the prohibitionist approach, based on repression of production and criminalization of consumption, has clearly failed.

    After 30 years of massive effort, all prohibitionism has achieved is to shift areas of cultivation and drug cartels from one country to another (the so-called balloon effect). Latin America remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana. Thousands of young people continue to lose their lives in gang wars. Drug lords rule by fear over entire communities.

    We ended our report with a call for a paradigm shift. The illicit drug trade will continue as long as there is demand for drugs. Instead of sticking to failed policies, that do not reduce the profitability of the drug trade – and thus its power – we must redirect our efforts to the harm caused by drugs to people and societies, and to reducing consumption.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - What You Can Do

    A National Call to Action!

    Activist Boot Camp, February 19-20, 2011

    The National Call to Action is the nation’s first medical cannabis virtual skill-building conference. Re-pledge your commitment to safe and legal access by joining thousands of your fellow activists for two days of community-building, skill-sharing, and strategic planning.

    For nearly a decade ASA has been hosting trainings and workshops to build capacity among our base and mobilize our activists. When we began this work, ASA focused on the battles in California. Today our scope is national, and we get pleas from almost every state asking us to help them activate their base and build a strategy to ensure safe access.

    ASA is hosting this conference virtually to better reach the thousands and thousands of patients and activists who need our trainings – we know that in these tough economic times we’ll train with more breadth and depth if we’re able to bring ASA to the masses, rather than the masses to ASA.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    DEA Postition on Marijuana

    The campaign to legitimize what is called “medical” marijuana is based on two propositions: first, that science views marijuana as medicine; and second, that the DEA targets sick and dying people using the drug. Neither proposition is true. Specifically, smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science–it is not medicine, and it is not safe. Moreover, the DEA targets criminals engaged in the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana, not the sick and dying. This is true even in the 14 states that have approved the use of “medical” marijuana.

  • Hot Off The 'Net - International

    Mexico’s Ex-President Vicente Fox: Legalize Drugs

    As Mexico drowns in drug related bloodshed — suffering almost 12,000 murders in 2010 — it is perhaps unsurprising that government critics turn up their screaming that the war on drugs isn’t working. But it was a bit of a bombshell when former president Vicente Fox added his voice to the chorus. The cowboy-boot wearing leader, who ruled Mexico from 2000 to 2006, had once declared the “mother of all battles” against crime and rounded up drug kingpins. But before he left office, he had witnessed the first big spike in violence as the narcos retaliated. In August of 2010, evidence surfaced that his vision had changed when he wrote on his blog that prohibition wasn’t working. Now, in a recent interview with TIME in his hometown in Central Mexico, he explains that his views have moved on to the other end of the spectrum: favoring full-on legalization of production, transit and selling of prohibited drugs. Fox is most explicit about marijuana, but argues that the principle applied to all illegal drugs.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Drugged: High on Marijuana

    Drugged: High on Marijuana uses visual effects and CGI to take the viewer on a trip through the human body. Using testimony from those who enjoy using the drugs, and those who have been addicted, the episode offers an insight into the realities of these drugs. Some of Britain and America’s top scientists and doctors will also explain the surprising bio-chemical effects of these popular drugs as well as their unintended consequences.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Politics, Parenting, Pot or Psychosis: What Caused the Arizona Shootings?

    By Maia Szalavitz

    When an act of seemingly inexplicable violence like the Arizona massacre occurs, everyone is desperate for explanations. Some look to political rhetoric, some look to mental illness, some blame the parents, others point to marijuana. But what’s really at fault?

    The reality is clearly complex. As researchers searching for the causes of violence and the roots of psychosis know, Jared Loughner’s behavior cannot easily be explained by a gene or a drug or culture or parenting. While each of those factors can be shown to have measurable effects, their relative contributions are often small or moderate and can’t be easily teased apart into a recipe of rampage in any individual case.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Top Ten Marijuana Victories in 2010

    By Rob Kampia

    It’s with enthusiasm that I present this top-10 list for 2010. While there were a few disappointing losses — most notably the statewide ballot-initiative defeats in Oregon and South Dakota on November 2 — almost everything else demonstrated positive momentum for the marijuana policy reform movement.

    In trying to make this list manageable, I haven’t listed (1) developments in clinical research; (2) developments in foreign countries; (3) the passage or defeat of local measures to tax medical marijuana, since these measures can be viewed as either good or bad; and (4) the progress that the Marijuana Policy Project made with moving our bills forward in the Delaware, Illinois, and other state legislatures where we haven’t yet achieved the ultimate victories we seek.

    (In the interest of full disclosure: MPP, of which I am the executive director, played a significant role in five of the 10 victories below, assisted in an ancillary way in four, and played no role at all in one [the court cases]. They are listed in no particular order.)